1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a satellite communication apparatus and particularly to a corrector for reducing distortion of a signal in a satellite communication channel.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a digital data transmission link, particularly a satellite transmission link, it is known for modulation techniques to use symbols arranged as points in a particular constellation pattern to represent digital data. The constellation shows all possible combinations of complex (I and Q) samples of the data being transmitted and the (constellation pattern is an overlay of all possible positions of each data sample at a particular point. Typical techniques are those of phase shift keying (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Common techniques are quadrature phase shift keying (QPS) which is used for digital satellite transmission for consumer TV applications, and 8 PSK which is used, for example, for satellite news gathering applications. It is a desire to utilise higher order modulation methods such as 16 PSK and 16 QAM to permit transmission at a higher bit rate so as to facilitate a greater number of channels to be carried within a predefined bandwidth of a particular transmission link.
As is well known, transmission of a modulated signal through a transmission link such as a terrestrial link, cable or satellite results in distortion of the signal. The distortion is due, at least in part, to non-linear effects upon a signal as it passes through the transmission link. The distortion, in terms of magnitude and/or phase, results in a change in location of the constellation points for any given modulation scheme and an increase in the order of modulation results in a decrease in the distance between constellation points, thereby leading to distortion having a greater effect. Such distortion has the disadvantage of producing errors in demodulation.
It is known to compensate for such non-linear distortion effects within transmission links by use of a pre-correction compensator. Signal pre-distortion performed at radio frequencies (RF), intermediate frequencies (IF) or base band frequencies is often carried out by application of an inverse function of the distortion to be expected of the signal in the transmission path. Such pre-distortion is disclosed in WO-A-95132561 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,992,754. Such forms of pre-correction tend to generate out-of-band components which are passed through to amplifiers in the transmission channel. Where the amplifier has an input filter, as is common for amplifiers used in satellite transmission links, then these out-of-band components are usually filtered out prior to amplification. Thus, the input signal to the amplifier is not the entire signal. This means that pre-correction is not effective for correction of amplifiers contained within satellite transponders where the bandwidth of the incoming signal is high in relation to the bandwidth of the transponder. Further, for higher order modulation schemes, such a form of pre-correction requires very high clocking rates in order to generate the wide-band pre-distortion components.
The foregoing problems are partially mitigated by the apparatus disclosed in WO-A-0025495, which discloses an arrangement for pre-distorting a signal so as to offset later distortion of the signal during transmission across a satellite transmission link which contains root Nyquist bandpass filters in respective up and down links. The apparatus includes a plurality of identical pre-distorting stages each of which generates an approximation of the required pre-distortion. Each successive stage receives an approximation from the preceding stage so that errors in successive approximations converge towards zero with increase in the number of stages. However, each pre-distorting stage contains only a forward model of the up and down root Nyquist filters and a forward model of the amplifier used in the satellite. Thus, the disclosure of WO-A-0025495 does not provide corrections for distortions in other parts of the transmission link and corrects only non-linear phase and non-linear magnitude distortions. In this respect, other forms of distortions are caused by group (delay and also by truncating the frequency spectrum of the transmitted signal by the filters used in the channel.
Referring to FIG. 1, which shows in block schematic form a transmitting end of a satellite link, there is shown a satellite modulator 1 providing output to a group delay equaliser 2 which applies equal and opposite delay so as to provide equalisation of the delay created by the satellite input multiplex filter (IMUX) 7 and output multiplex filter (OMUX) 9. The group delay equaliser is based upon linear distortion. Output from the group delay equaliser is applied to an up converter 3 and thence to a high power amplifier 4. The high power amplifier 4 provides a signal to a satellite dish 5 which transmits the data to a satellite 6. The satellite 6 incorporates the input multiplexer filter 7 feeding a power amplifier 8 which may be a travelling wave tube (TWT) or a solid state power amplifier and output from the amplifier 8 is applied to the output multiplex filter 9 for transmission to a receiving satellite dish (not shown).
The principal group delay in the up link is caused by the IMUX filter 7 and OMUX filter 9. The group delay equaliser 2, which may be implemented in digital or analogue form, and may be part of the modulator hardware, is designed to implement a group delay function which is equal and opposite to the sum total of the group delay contributions of the IMUX and OMUX filters.
If the amplifier 4 and satellite power amplifier 8 are operated with a large power back off, i.e. operated in the linear region of the amplifiers, so that the channel is essentially linear, then the equaliser is able to substantially correct for the group delay contributions of the channel.
However, in order to improve power efficiency of the channel, it is usual to operate the high power amplifier 4 and power amplifier 8 with only a small power back off, i.e. in a non-linear region of the amplifiers. An output power back off of 3 dB from full saturated power for the high power amplifier and 0.5 dB from full saturated power for the satellite power amplifier 8 may be typically employed. Such non-linear effects are pre-corrected by the apparatus disclosed in WO-A-0025495.
However, when a low value of back off is used, both the high power amplifier 4 and the satellite power amplifier 8, operating in their non-linear regions, have an effect upon group delay with the result that the group delay equaliser 2 is not able to completely correct for the channel group delay, although partial correction may take place depending on the high power amplifier and the power amplifier non-linearities.
It is an object of this invention to provide a corrector for group delay which will achieve a more efficient correction than the prior art where power back off is small.
An additional difficulty associated with the prior art is of distortions caused by truncating the frequency spectrum, e.g. by filtering, in the satellite transponder. If the spectrum of a transmitted signal is truncated, for example by the influence of a narrow band filter in the channel, then signal distortion occurs which degrades the bit error rate (BER) of a digital signal. Thus, if the channel is operated at a high bit rate, the IMUX and OMUX filters 7, 9 will cause spectrum truncation.
It is, accordingly, a further object of this invention to at least partially correct for such spectrum truncation.